Why Bengaluru police's Twitter initiative is a hit with public but a miss with police staff

BENGALURU: City Police Commissioner MN Reddi's micro-blogging initiative could be a hit with the public. Policemen in the lower rungs of the administration, however, say there is a flip side to it: they are unable to devote time to complaints filed in their police stations as Twitter-based complaints are hogging priority .
Police inspectors ET spoke to said they have to act quickly on complaints received on the micro-blogging site.Each complaint that is tagged to Reddi (@CPBlr) is forwarded to deputy commissioners, who then instruct inspectors to act quickly .

Officers said that their planned schedule on a certain day is disrupted when such calls arrive. This impacts investigation of other cases, they held. Action taken reports are expected to be filed immediately . If complaints on Twitter are not looked into urgently , a memo is issued to inspectors from his higherups. Clearly, Twitter complaints are taken more seriously , they said.

“We must act so quickly that we end up leaving whatever we are doing midway ,“ an inspector from the central division said. To underline his point, he claimed that in the past month, he received 10 complaints through Twitter of which he solved six; whereas he solved only 13 of the 37 complaints re ceived at the station.

“I have left an interrogation midway to attend to a Twitter case about a beggar bothering someone at a traffic signal. The interrogation was at a crucial point and we were unable to get details rom the burglar. He managed to get the bail the next day,“ said an officer from the east division.

All the opposition to complaints based on social media seems to lead to the demand for more staffing. “Considering that most complaints on Twitter deal with cases like pickpocket or loud speakers being used at night, it will help if a separate team is formed in each division to look at complaints being received on Twitter. The staff at police station will assist them if required.“ said an inspector.

Higher-ups dismiss these complaints as non-issues. “What if the complaints are filed on Twitter, don't they come under the same jurisdiction? And they cannot ignore any complaints or feel that it is extra workload,“ said DCP Central Sandeep Patil.

Clearly not used to such close monitoring by higher-ups and the public, these officers could well be using Twitter as an excuse to shirk duty seems to be the public refrain. Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh said, “It is the police's duty to act on complaints, no matter whether it is registered on Twitter or at the police station.“

Sandeep Patil further pointed out that those who complained on Twitter are expected to file it at the jurisdictional police station subsequently .

City Police Commissioner MN Reddi said, `There is no differentiation between the complaints filed on Twitter and in the police station. Police have to handle both cases without ignoring any complaints.'